Hall of Fame: One Man's Ballot

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Editor's note: Over the course of the voting, we will occasionally be posting ballots of voters who wish to make their choices public, along with any additional analysis they used to come to their decisions. If other Selection Committee members wish to provide analysis and explanation of their votes for publication, click here.

Charlie Catino's Hall of Fame Vote

Or "Now for something completely different"

I am a baseball fan as well as a Magic fan. There are things I like about the baseball Hall of Fame and there are things I don't like. I don't like the fact that it includes on equal footing Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Eppa Rixey, and Herb Pennock. Obviously the first two players are more deserving the other two. How do baseball fans differentiate them? They do so in two ways:

Whether or not they were "First-Ballot" Hall of Famers

The percentage of votes that they received

Important voting factors

As a voter, I believe that both of these concepts are important and my Hall of Fame vote this year reflects the importance I place on these concepts. In the future, I will also be looking more deeply at all the players' wins, top 8s, lifetime earnings, deckbuilding prowess, work ethic, integrity, teamwork, and star qualities when voting. However, I believe that this vote needs to be about Percentage of Votes and First Ballot status.

First Ballot

I have very high standards for who belongs as a First-Ballot Hall of Famer. Because the system is set up to have five players make it no matter what, this factor is less important to me than the Percentage of Votes factor. In my opinion, only two players on this year's list fully deserve to be voted in on the first ballot – Jon and Darwin. I believe that a few others are borderline, but will use the Percentage of Votes factor as the biggest factor in my decision.

Percentage of Votes

I believe that Jon Finkel not only deserves to be a First-Ballot Hall of Famer, but I believe that he is the only player on the list to deserves to get all the votes. I echo Mark Rosewater's sentiment – shame on any voter who doesn't vote for Jon. In my opinion there are only two Magic Players who deserve this honor, and Jon is the first to deserve it (Voidmage Prodigy is the other). Even though Darwin is a great player, in my opinion he does not deserve to be unanimous. With these factors outlining my decision, you can now understand my vote.

My Vote

1. Jon Finkel 2. 3. 4. 5.

Apologies to Darwin

I believe that Darwin is the only other player in this crop to clearly deserve to make it first ballot. I also believe that there are enough other voters that will vote for him that he will get what he deserves and make it into the Hall of Fame this year. If my one vote was the vote he needed in order to get in, then I will owe Darwin a huge public apology (and I will keep voting for him every year until he gets in).

Jon Finkel, Magic Superstar

I do not need to write very much about Jon – everyone knows how good Jon is. Almost $300,000 in career winnings, at or near the top of almost every stat list (Pro points, PT top 8s, GP top 8s, average Pro Points per PT, and many more). As many other voters have already noted (see Brian Schneider's column), Jon is head and shoulders above the rest and he fully deserves to be in the Hall, be a First-Ballot inductee, and to have the best (hopefully 100%) voting percentage of all the players. I am using my vote to do what I can to achieve these goals.